In a communications network, various nodes including computing systems are coupled. Forwarding devices, such as routers, switches and hubs working in conjunction with the computing systems enable the delivery of packets from one node to another within a network, and between nodes of located in different networks. In that manner, a packet originating at one node is delivered to its destination node via a path that may include other nodes.
Control traffic is used to manage the network. For example, control traffic may indicate how nodes are interconnected to facilitate delivery of packets throughout the network. In addition, control traffic may include status and error messaging so that problems in the network may be addressed.
If control traffic becomes undeliverable, some or all of the network may fail. This leads to data traffic throughout the network being dropped. For example, congestion across an in-band control network that shares a communication path with data may affect the delivery of control traffic. Moreover, traditional in-band control networks have minimal or no mechanisms in place for guaranteeing delivery of control traffic, and any mechanisms that do exist do not consider both local and global views of the communications network